Russia embraces Belarus as Lukashenko helps Putin complete the Anschluss.
Putin isn't trying to foment a migrant crisis in Europe:
Poland has massed thousands of troops on its border with Belarus to keep out Middle Eastern migrants who have set up camp there, as Western officials accuse Belarus’s leader of intentionally trying to create a new migrant crisis in Europe.
I think Putin is using migrants as a weapon to get Europe to drive Belarus fully into Russia's Anschluss arms to justify a Putin order to move Russian ground troops into Belarus.
And Belarus is following Putin's orders to anger Europeans:
Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko on Thursday raised the possibility he could shut down the transit of natural gas to Europe via Belarus in retaliation against any new European Union sanctions imposed over his country's handling of migrants.
If Russia deploys troops into Belarus the level of the Russian threat to NATO skyrockets.
Indeed, defending north of the Suwalki Gap on the Poland-Lithuania border gets risky.
Don't think for a minute that if Putin gets Belarus that somehow the Russians will feel safe and stop acting like paranoid nuclear-armed freaks. No amount of pushing their frontier farther from Moscow will ever be enough.
Please adjust your pucker factor to the fully upright position and prepare for a hard landing.
UPDATE: I'm not saying Russia would ultimately win such a war, assuming NATO mobilizes to fight back.
But:
Russia blundered into World War I and II poorly prepared and ineptly led, suffering enormous losses. The current Russian government has ordered that the history of those two wars be revised and portray Russia as the heroic victim of deceptions and provocations by the West. Put another way, Russia has a history of bad judgement and self-destructive military decisions.
Will no advisor tell Putin he is effing up royally?
Pucker factor okay?
UPDATE: Huh:
Russia dispatched paratroopers to Belarus Friday amid growing tension between the Minsk government and Poland over increasing numbers of migrants along their border — and fears in the West that Vladimir Putin could soon launch an invasion of Ukraine.
But despite having his arm so far enough up Lukashenko's backside to tickle his tonsils, Putin denies having anything to do with the border crisis:
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday denied claims Moscow is helping to orchestrate a crisis that has left hundreds of migrants from the Middle East trapped on the Belarus-Poland border.
Well I'm glad we cleared that up.
UPDATE: Huh:
Amid a rapidly escalating border row with Poland, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said he has renewed his request with Russian President Vladimir Putin to acquire Iskander missile systems for his country’s armed forces.
Belarus started the "row." And now "Belarus" wants surface-to-surface missiles because of the "row?"
These would be aimed and fired by Russia, of course.
